Doubt
by mtm
Summary: Episode tag to 5x6 "Cherry picking". Did Lisbon ever find out what Jane was up to with his interviews?


**A/N**: Thank you guys for reading my stories! Here's is the next tag. I was struck by how cold Jane came across in this episode as well as I was wondering what evidence they would use to arrest Walter. Enjoy!

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**5.6 Doubt**

Jane skipped the stairs down from Walter DeMunn's residence with his usual cocky confidence letting the officers take it from there. He went straight to his car as he needed to get back to his attic to ponder how it would give him an opening to Lorelei. At least he knew now it was the FBI and not Red John who had her.

As he sat down in his car he could feel a twinge of pain on his chest. The damn wire was still attached to his chest. Luckily he wasn't that hairy but clearly it had ripped some hairs off but it had been the only way to prove that Walter had been guilty so that he could be arrested. As Lisbon had said, few officers were as trusting as she was so they needed hard evidence for a conviction so he had agreed. Also the fact that she wouldn't be listening in had helped as he knew how hard and cold he needed to come across to be able to wring out the information.

He felt guilty anyway. Lisbon gave her everything to make him better and his defenses had started to break down to allow her in and he felt so guilty for allowing it. He wanted to take everything she offered and more, but he couldn't. He had a job to do first and he fully expected to die in the process. He couldn't cause Lisbon any more pain so he tried to keep his distance, but sometimes it just became too much. He still remembered the night on his couch, when he had held her in his arms. How content and even happy he had felt. It was a memory that kept him going when all he wanted to do was to curl up and die…

Enough of this, he thought to himself as he focused his thoughts. He could return the wire tomorrow. It wasn't like the police would ran out of them.

Jane started the car, rubbing his chest where the tape had caught the hairs and drove away.

XXX

Lisbon slowly removed the headphones when the officers had gone in to arrest Walter. She hadn't told Jane that she would be present but she wanted to keep an eye on him, especially as she had made some headway in making him to open up to her. Or so she had thought.

The cold, emotionless voice that had floated in from the headphones wasn't what she had expected. Nor was his obvious enthusiasm and glee as he bounced down the stairs. Lucky for Jane, Walter hadn't pulled a gun out and shot himself after he was left alone. Probably an outcome that Jane hadn't even bothered to think about.

"You've got your hands full with that one," remarked one of the officers in the surveillance van.

Lisbon smiled weakly and thanked him for allowing her to stay and stepped out of the van into the sunshine.

This was wrong. Jane had shown her his pain and terror so many times, given hints of the hell he lived in day in, day out. He had started to accept physical comfort and had started to include her in his schemes. But to hear this; this hard, cold man pushing for information he wanted regardless of the consequences, this made her heart constrict and an icy terror to creep up her spine. Had she been wrong after all? Had Patrick Jane managed to fool her like everyone else and was just playing games with her?

Lisbon walked slowly towards her car, which was parked few blocks away. She was deep in her thoughts and tried to decide what to do. If she confronted Jane, he would know that she had been there, but he would also know that something was wrong when he saw her and would demand an answer to why and she would need to come up with a good excuse. She honestly didn't know what she would say.

She climbed into her car and drove back to the office, her mind in a chaos. When she stepped out of the lift, Jane was walking past her. She froze for a second, but Jane only threw "Hello Lisbon!" over his shoulder with a distracted smile on his way up to his attic, without really paying attention.

Lisbon nodded and smiled weakly and headed towards the security of her own office. She didn't expect Cho to appear next to her and jumped with a hand on her chest when he did.

"Cho! You scared me," Lisbon managed to get out.

"What's up?" she continued trying to get her racing heart under control.

"You okay, boss?" Cho asked quietly with a glance towards the attic, before focusing his eyes on her.

Trust for Cho to pick up that something was wrong. Lisbon knew that she could talk with him, to sound out different theories, however at the moment the suspicion that she might have been played was too painful to say out loud and she forced herself to smile at him.

"Sure, everything's fine," Lisbon said and walked to her office, leaving Cho standing with a small frown.

**The end**


End file.
